1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus for printing images such as characters and graphic data on a printing sheet.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently personal computers have been remarkably improved in aspect of functions year by year. Furthermore the size and cost reduction may allow them to be applied to a variety of fields. A printer, one of the main peripheral devices of the personal computer, has also been improved in aspect of colorization, high resolution, and high operation speed. At present, however, only a large-sized and expensive printer can satisfy the aforementioned high performance. Although a small-sized printer with a simple structure for printing on a sheet of standard size such as size A4 has been available on the market, it fails to satisfy the requirement of high printing speed and high resolution.
Accordingly it has been a trend to use the system in which a printer with a relatively high operation speed and appropriate functions is connected to a plurality of personal computers through network such that a plurality of users share the printer. This system makes it possible to introduce a high-speed, high-resolution color printer at a relatively low cost for various purposes.
However, as a single printer is shared by a plurality of users to receive a plurality of jobs simultaneously, the user cannot obtain the printing result until the preceding job demanded by another user is finished. Therefore, even a small-sized data such as a short electronic mail (e-mail) cannot be printed out until the preceding job is finished. Connecting each printer, instead of the shared printer, to the corresponding personal computer of all users may increase the cost. In particular, the enormous costs will be required if the respective printers are provided for a large number of workers (users) in the office. Even if less expensive printers having relatively lower performance are introduced for saving the cost, each user's desktop space for the printer is required, thus increasing the cost unavoidably. Furthermore, the lower-resolution or lower-speed printer may not satisfy requirements of all the demanded jobs by themselves.
In recent years, portable mobile computers have been widely used, and peripheral devices such as a floppy disk drive have been formed into portable devices. However, a portable printer that can be compact enough to be put into a pocket or a bag has not been available, failing to keep abreast of the "mobile computer age".
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a small printing apparatus that can be used by an individual user as a memo pad and occupies only a small space. It is another object of the present invention to provide a printing apparatus which can be connected to an individual personal computer and be used instead of or with the network printer that is high performance but is a large and expensive. It is still another object of the present invention to provide a less expensive printing apparatus that can be used by an individual user to print notes or rough drafts. It is further object of the present invention to provide a printer small enough to be put in a pocket, a bag or the like as a portable printer which can be used with the mobile computer at any time and any place. It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a stile of supplying printing sheets adapted to a small printer.